NFL trends that will define the 2018 season

Tomlinson gained 80 percent of those yards — 1,455 of them — from personnel groupings that included two backs. Lorenzo Neal was the Chargers’ 255-pound bulldozing fullback, just as Mack Strong (253 pounds) had been for Seattle when Shaun Alexander won the rushing title a year earlier.

Eighteen teams have fullbacks on their rosters entering Week 1, according to depth charts at Ourlads.com, but last season, the entire AFC West gained 1,100 yards rushing from two-back personnel. That was 16 percent of the division’s rushing total. Leaguewide, the percentage of plays featuring two backs has plummeted from more than 40 percent in 2006 to less than 13 percent over the past two seasons, declining every year in between.

Players listed as fullbacks in ESPN’s data warehouse averaged 236 starts per season from 2001-08. That average fell to 178 from 2009-13. It has dipped below 100 over the past couple seasons.

“Regular” remains the word coaches use to describe 21 personnel, the traditional base-offense grouping with two backs and one tight end. It’s much less regular than it used to be, accounting for fewer than 10 percent of snaps even on first down. That rate was 30 percent a decade ago and 20 percent five years ago.

“When you have a fullback in the game in 21, you don’t threaten the defense in the least bit passing,” a coordinator said. “There is not a fourth vertical threat on the field and he’s lined up in the backfield, so you get all the crazy blitzes and the defenses are getting faster, not slower. And you don’t challenge them mentally with two backs in the backfield because there aren’t any exotic formations you can get into.”

Two-back counterpoint: It’s effective when used correctly

Teams tossed 19 touchdown passes with 19 interceptions from 21 personnel last season, having all but abandoned the grouping in the pass game.

However, a few pockets of 21-favoring coordinators remain, and one coach said he thought the NFL could see an uptick in the future (the rate of 21 personnel plays increased by about a percentage point from 2016 to 2017 after 10 consecutive years of decline). It’s one way to keep defenses in base personnel, reducing the volume of potential coverages in the absence of a fifth defensive back.

New England led the NFL in percentage of two-back snaps in 2016 (34.8) and was second last season (35.4), reaching the Super Bowl both times while averaging between 27-28 offensive points per game. Atlanta ranked third in two-back snap rate in 2016 (30.8), when Matt Ryan was MVP and the Falcons averaged 31.6 offensive points per game. The way those teams have used two backs differs from the way teams have used two backs traditionally.

“New England runs empty [backfield] passes out of regular personnel [two backs and a tight end], with the No. 2s running seams, the No. 1s running hitches, the inside guy running the option route and the back all the way outside so they can have a man-zone coverage tip,” an offensive coach said. “It’s fabulous. Kyle Shanahan’s misdirection game allows him to be in it [previously with Houston, Washington and Atlanta, now with San Francisco]. Y-motion and receiver motion and misdirection prevent fast defenders from just sprinting one way.”

Coaches and execs aren’t united in their thinking. It could be that a team either needs a skilled offensive designer committed to two-back personnel concepts, or players highly trained in the finer points of blocking. Some say those types of players aren’t coming out of the college ranks now that college systems are mostly about spreading the field to create mismatches in space.

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Trend 2: 11 personnel surging

The 11 signifies one back with one tight end, leaving three wide receivers to fill out the remaining three spots for eligible pass-catchers. Eleven is the NFL’s de facto base offense, surpassing 21 personnel as the most prominent grouping on early downs as of 2009.

Eleven personnel’s usage has gone from being used on less than one-third of total offensive snaps a dozen years ago to being the choice on more than 58 percent over the past two seasons, crossing over the 50 percent threshold in 2013. In a shift that might have shocked coaches a decade ago, teams in 2017 used 11 personnel about as frequently in goal-line situations (39 percent) as they used it overall in 2011.

“Defenses have forced offenses to be more open and create more space on first down because everyone is being more aggressive — single-high safety, man coverage, five-man rushers, forcing you to throw the ball outside,” a head coach said. “If you have two-back and we are in single-high rushing five, you have no chance running the football. Teams are going 11 personnel, so if the defense goes single-high, you can still run it and have some space. If you throw, you will get one-on-one.”

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Trend 3: Shotgun formation all the way (well, most of the way)

The NFL has gone from using shotgun formations less than 20 percent of the time (2006) to using them about 60 percent of the time in recent seasons. That includes a nearly 50 percent shotgun rate on early downs.

Coaches offer all kinds of thoughts as to why. If you’re going to be playing 11 personnel most of the time, and if you’re worried about pass protection in part because colleges are producing linemen, tight ends and running backs who are untrained in the fundamentals of blocking, you might want to give your quarterback additional space to operate, some say. The shotgun formation provides this. It’s also what your highly drafted quarterback probably knows from college, and since the expectation is for highly drafted quarterbacks to play quickly, there’s logic in doing what they do best, even though the number of running plays and play-actions available shrinks dramatically when the quarterback is no longer under center.

“The college game has changed so much,” a defensive coach said. “The draft last year, the first five tight ends drafted were big receivers. It’s Delanie Walker types, it’s Evan Engram. They are 235- or 240-pound tight ends who run 4.4. It’s the quarterback and all the guys we are drafting. They are all in shotgun. Also, the outside ‘backers and defensive line are so dominant, you can’t go out in two backs and beat defenses. It’s the biggest disadvantage in football, the D-line vs. the O-line, and everybody talks about O-line play is going down. Well, the defensive line play has gone up.”

Counterpoint: QB under center is effective when used correctly

The Rams, Saints and Patriots ranked among the NFL’s top four in offensive points per game last season. They also ranked in the top eight in percentage of total snaps from under center. So did the 49ers and Falcons, who have enjoyed offensive success either in 2016 (Falcons) or late 2017 (49ers) from under center.

The Rams under McVay are interesting because they led the NFL in 11 personnel usage on early downs last season while also ranking first in percentage of snaps under center in these situations. That combination gave them a larger menu of runs and play-action choices without compromising the number of vertical threats.

Rams quarterback Jared Goff finished last season with 1,205 yards, eight touchdowns, no interceptions and a 10.4-yard average per attempt from 11 personnel on early downs while under center. No other quarterback had more than 428 yards (Jameis Winston) or three touchdowns (Tom Brady, Derek Carr) in these situations.

The idea behind remaining under center is to make the runs and passes look alike to the defense, allowing the offense to run some longer-developing plays while the defense transitions from stopping the run to rushing the passer. This can be easier to do from under center because defenses are typically more wary of the run then.

“You have a chance to get down the field with the run actions and then people start committing to that,” McVay said last season. “Now it opens up, you might get a softer box count for your runs, so it all ties in — not to mention, for us, the X factor is the jet sweeps with Tavon Austin. When he is jetting around the end when you have a tight end in protection, he softens up that protection for not a great matchup.”

Austin’s price tag became untenable for the Rams, who traded him to Dallas. The jet-motion concept should be on the rise for the Cowboys, and others.

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Trend 4: Four-WR offense out the window (and that’s not all)

Teams now use four wide receivers at a time on 2-4 percent of snaps, down from closer to 10 percent in the mid-2000s. Chan Gailey remained a four-receiver loyalist when he was with the New York Jets and Buffalo Bills, but most coaches say they find the grouping problematic in pass protection.

Using two backs with no tight ends (20 personnel) has all but gone away, while the beefy 22 grouping with two backs and two tight ends has faded since Jim Harbaugh left the NFL. The Harbaugh-era 49ers, Tony Sparano-era Miami Dolphins and Gruden-era Tampa Bay Buccaneers account for the top seven spots for percentage of 22 personnel plays among 384 teams since 2006.

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Trend 5: Jet motion, jet sweeps and ghost motion rising

Teams like Kansas City, New England and the Rams are increasingly sending wide receivers in motion between the quarterback and line of scrimmage to take handoffs (jet sweep) or serve as decoys (jet motion). Sometimes the receiver runs behind the quarterback (ghost motion).

Usage has roughly quadrupled over the past four seasons, with some teams using these tactics multiple times per game on average.

“As a [defensive] coordinator, it makes you have to check everything you do because the bottom line is, all it takes is one guy — maybe we don’t get the call, we don’t get the movement right — and there is a huge gap there,” a coordinator said. “It is not the Wildcat any more. It’s the jet motion, the ghost motion and how do we defend that? Do we try to change the coverage? Do you spin things? Do you go vanilla in your game plan so you can handle it?”

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Trend 6: Run-pass options (RPO)

By most counts, Philadelphia led the league in run-pass options last season, with Kansas City, Green Bay, Carolina, Jacksonville, Cincinnati, Tennessee and the Jets also regular users. Pro Football Focus charted more than eight per game this past season, up from about five per game in 2016.

The plays can be tricky to identify, but the basic idea is that the quarterback waits until after the snap before deciding whether to hand off or pass, making his decision as quickly as possible based on what he sees from the defense. The decision can hinge on whether one of the linebackers is defending run or pass, but if the quarterback holds the ball even a half-tick too long, he can be vulnerable to absorbing punishment because sometimes the best defender isn’t even blocked.

“I do think the RPO stuff is going to stay around for at least another year,” Chargers quarterback Philip Rivers said, “because it’s not a zone-read — a guy like me [who is not a runner] can pull it and throw it. Those will stay up.”

One general manager said he thought the Eagles caught the Patriots off guard in the Super Bowl with some of their variations on the RPO game. This GM thought defenses wouldn’t be fooled as much in 2018. However, another GM said he thought the RPO wave was only gaining momentum. It’s certainly heading to Chicago now that former Chiefs assistant Matt Nagy is the Bears’ head coach.

“It is not a new idea, but it’s implemented a little differently,” Rams offensive-line coach and run-game coordinator Aaron Kromer said. “When we were back in New Orleans in 2008, if you had a run that you didn’t have the right scheme on and you had a one-on-one for a receiver, you threw the quick slant. There were certain looks you liked and you just kicked it out there. Philly did a good job taking it to the next level.”

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Trend 7: Tight ends lining up elsewhere

The Don Coryell-era Chargers featured Hall of Fame tight end Kellen Winslow as a slot receiver some 40 years ago, moving him around the formation and unleashing him on option routes that were revolutionary at the time.

The Peyton Manning-era Indianapolis Colts made tight end Dallas Clark a fixture in the slot more than a decade ago. The Kansas City Chiefs did it with future Hall of Fame tight end Tony Gonzalez, but featuring tight ends as receivers from the slot has become more widespread in recent seasons.

Over the past six seasons, tight ends have drawn 41-44 percent of their targets while aligned in the slot, up from 28-31 percent over the previous five years. Tight ends are aligning in the slot or out wide — detached from the core, but not in the backfield — about 28 percent of the time, up from 20 percent previously.

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Trend 8: Fewer workhorse backs

With pass attempts on an upward trajectory over the past decade, running backs have lost about 1,000 carries per season from the totals they enjoyed from 2004-06. They’ve lost about 10 carries per team over the past five seasons. Fewer carries equates to fewer workhorse running backs.

From 2001-07, between 38-45 percent of starting running backs carried the ball at least 20 times. That figure was down to 22 percent last season. Thirty-two backs since 2001 have at least 30 starts with 20 carries, but only a handful are active: Adrian Peterson, Frank Gore, Marshawn Lynch, LeSean McCoy and Le’Veon Bell.

“The colleges are bringing us shotgun quarterbacks, they are not bringing us fullbacks and they are not bringing us tight ends that can block,” an offensive coach said. “You are getting smaller running backs, and the 11 [personnel] game lends itself to smaller backs, which also means you need more of a committee. That is why you are seeing everybody have two legitimate backs, sometimes three.”

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Trend 9: Fewer dropped passes and fumbles

I know what you’re thinking, or at least what you should be thinking. If players are dropping fewer passes, it’s probably because teams are making so many shorter, higher-percentage throws. That’s what I was thinking, but drop rates have come down even when we look only at passes traveling 5, 10 or 15 yards downfield.

Charting drops is a subjective endeavor, of course. ESPN’s charting requires the drops to be obvious and not borderline. Using that standard, the drop rate has fallen from 5.2 percent (2006-12) to 4.1 percent (2013-17). Could it be that the pass-oriented nature of the game at all levels is providing the NFL with surer-handed players?

Fumbles are also down. The NFL averaged more than three fumbles per game every season from 2001-07. The average dipped into the high twos for a few years before dropping into the 2.5 range in each of the past seven seasons. The decline in rushing plays could be part of the change. The NFL’s emphasis on removing especially violent hits could be another factor.

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Trend 10: Some of the best players not in Pro Bowl

The Pro Bowl is no longer in Hawaii, the game has recently been off-limits to Super Bowl participants, the money isn’t great in relation to rising salaries and the financial stakes are higher in the case of injury (ask Tyler Eifert).

Those reasons help explain why in recent years record numbers of players have turned down the NFL’s invitation to participate in the annual all-star game.

The total number of players invited to the Pro Bowl has risen by more than 20 percent in recent seasons, as seen in the table.

Could psychology be at work in addition to logistics?

There are fewer practices during the offseason. The practices that do take place feature much less blocking and tackling. Rules changes to promote player safety have made the game less physical. Spread formations place the emphasis on speed, not the fundamentals of blocking and tackling.

A couple years ago, when the Pro Bowl game itself had deteriorated into a glorified game of two-hand touch, a head coach said he thought these changes, while welcome in some cases, were contributing to a shift in overall player mentality.

“The Pro Bowl shows you where the mentality is of the elite players,” this coach said. “They don’t want to do it. They don’t want to go out there and run and block and tackle and hit. They are fearful. That is a big change. They don’t play just because they like playing. They are playing for other reasons.”

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Trend 11: Near-unanimity on coin-toss decisions

Bruce Arians took more than his stylish Kangol hats with him when he retired from the Arizona Cardinals. Arians, ever the maverick, also took with him a strategic philosophy that made him an outlier. In five seasons with Arizona, he elected to receive the opening kickoff 85 percent of the time when his team won the pregame coin toss. Damn right he wanted the ball, and the sooner, the better.

Coaches winning the toss elected to receive 99 percent of the time before the NFL’s 2008 change allowing coin-toss winners to defer their choice to the second half.

A decade after the rule was tweaked, the percentage of coaches deferring has surged past 80 percent.

Tony Sparano, Jack Del Rio, Bill Belichick, John Harbaugh, Rex Ryan, Chan Gailey, Dick Jauron and Jon Gruden were early adopters, deferring at a high rate from 2008-10, when the league as a whole deferred only about a third of the time.

Marvin Lewis, Jim Harbaugh, Mike McCarthy, Lovie Smith, Ken Whisenhunt, Greg Schiano, Joe Philbin, Jeff Fisher and Mike Tomlin helped push the win-and-defer rate to nearly 50 percent from 2011-12.

The deferral rate jumped to 65 percent from 2013-14 as John Fox, Mike McCoy, Doug Marrone, Pete Carroll, Ron Rivera, Marc Trestman, Dennis Allen, Mike Pettine, Mike Zimmer, Rob Chudzinski and Jay Gruden decided they would generally prefer having the ball to start the second half.

There remain a few holdouts. Arians, Jason Garrett and to some degree Tomlin have been conspicuous trend-buckers recently, but the 83 percent deferral rate over the past three seasons could climb higher if Arians’ successor in Arizona follows the path of his own mentor. New Cardinals coach Steve Wilks worked in Carolina under Rivera, who deferred 100 percent of the time over the past three seasons (down from 76 percent in 2013-14 and zero percent before that).

Why all the deferrals? There is no mathematically proven advantage. Some coaches think they could gain an edge by scoring on the final possession of the first half and the first possession of the second, potentially breaking open a game. There also could be a herd mentality. If a great coach such as Belichick is going to defer all the time, why go the opposite direction?

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Trend 12: Youth is served

In 2008, eight wide receivers combined to make 65 starts after turning age 35. Guys like Muhsin Muhammad, Marvin Harrison, Isaac Bruce, Bobby Engram, Joey Galloway and Terrell Owens were still hanging on, and playing well in some cases.

Fast forward to 2017. There were zero 35-plus wideouts in the league. Larry Fitzgerald, who turned 35 last month, was the only starting wide receiver older than 33 last season. He was the only 34-or-older wide receiver in the league, period.

The league has trended toward younger starters overall, especially at receiver, running back, quarterback and offensive line. The percentage of starts made by players younger than 25 has been on the rise, usually at the expense of players 30 and older. The change lines up with passage of the current collective bargaining agreement in 2011.

The situation at running back is similar, with the percentage of starts made by those in the 20-24 age bracket increasing more than 8 percentage points, all at the expense of running backs 30 and older. Those older backs accounted for 11 percent of starts since 2011, down from 20 percent over the previous 10 seasons.

While the shift on the offensive line was not quite as large as the shift at running back, the contours were similar, with the youngest displacing the oldest.

The quarterback situation is different. Starts among players in the 20-24 age bracket have increased, but this time the losers aren’t in the 30-plus bracket. It’s the quarterbacks aged 25-29 who have seen their percentage of starts drop nearly 7 percentage points since 2011.

The shift seems plausible. Quarterbacks, more than players at other positions, have shown an ability to blossom late in their careers. Experience and smarts can trump athleticism at the position. Rules changes designed to protect quarterbacks specifically also could be helping.

Meanwhile, a rookie wage scale featuring lower salaries for early draft choices has provided a competitive advantage for teams that have gotten good quarterback play from young players, especially in light of an increasingly expensive veteran market at the position.

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Trend 13: A shift in where the money goes

With greater emphasis on pass-oriented formations and the passing game in general, NFL teams have been shifting more of their money toward receivers, quarterbacks, cornerbacks, offensive linemen and pass-rushers. Money allocated for safeties also increased in recent years before regressing some in 2018 (some teams are using safeties as linebackers to improve their coverage capabilities, which is another trend to watch).

Defensive tackles, linebackers and running backs have been the primary financial losers in this shifting equation.

Brodie Waters of ESPN’s Roster Management System illustrated the change by calculating the percentage of money spent by position each year since 2011, when the current labor agreement went into effect. He used percentage of money spent instead of percentage of cap because cap allocations can fluctuate wildly from team to team based on how much unused space is carried over into the next year.

The percentage allocated for receivers and quarterbacks has risen to 11.7 percent from below 10 percent since 2011. Cornerbacks are getting more than 10 percent, a slight increase. Expenditures for offensive linemen have spiked over the past two years.

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Trend 14: An increase in trades

Teams were making about 60 trades per year for more than a decade before the number spiked past 90 in 2017. The number is already 89 this year.

While teams rarely make franchise-altering trades like the one that sent Khalil Mack from Oakland to Chicago last weekend, they do appear increasingly willing to trade for reasons that could include those outlined here. Those potential reasons include an increase in younger GMs who are more willing to wheel and deal, a feeling by some that teams overvalued draft choices in the past, removal of the roster reduction to 75 players during preseason and fewer contracts that are onerous from a cap standpoint.

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